The Animal Within Me
by Straightedge127
Summary: The Spirit of the Tiger has awaken and is slowly taking it's course through Manny's veigns. Can he do anything to keep himself under control, or will he be consumed by the animal within and become a full blown, wild animal? Can his family do anything to help him? Read to find out.


_**El Tigre: The Animal Within Me**_

**Chapter 1:**"

"You'll never take me alive, man." Cried El Oso as he ran as fast as he could from the great and legendary White Pantera with two large bags of money. However something seemed off. Pantera was not running as fast as he usually did. Actually, he's been running the same pace as him for the past five minutes. "Are your shoes going AWOL or are you just distracting me? You'll never catch me at this rate."

"Haha, mi amigo. That is because, I am not trying to." Pantera yelled.

"Huh?" Oso mumbled until he suddenly found himself collapsing on the hard pavement, dropping the money on impact. "Ahh, darn it. What the heck was that, man?" He rolled on his back to look for the cause of his fall and brought his attention to a chain. But it wasn't just any chain. It was a chain he became quite familiar with over the years. He looked to the left and saw a hand gripping onto a wall across the street.

It then let go and quickly reattached itself back onto the arm of it's most rightful owner. The boy dressed in a brown mask with white tufts, a scar on his left eye and gloves with large, metal claws, a tiger tail on his back and a belt with his signature 'T' labeled on it. The boy who over the years has been labeled neither hero, nor villain. The boy to soon inherit the true experience of the Rivera name. Manny Rivera aka...

"El Tigre." Oso gasped. Manny adjusted his wrist and approached him.

"Dude, would it kill you to stop robbing the same bank every time you get out of jail?" Manny groaned crossing his arms.

"I can't help it, man. They got so many Benjamins. The Benjamins!" Oso replied, as his eyes formed into dollar signs. "And the smell. Don't even get me started on the smell." He was suddenly interrupted when Pantera grabbed his fur and lifted him up.

"But today, the only thing you'll be smelling, is the aroma of a steel prison cell." He grinned and literally punched Oso into a prison truck. Oso rose up and gripped onto the bars of the truck as it drove away into the moonlight.

"Excellent work today, Mijo. You've really made me proud today." Rodolfo commented to his 15 year old son.

"Yeah, thanks, Papi." Manny replied, tired.

"Is something wrong, my son?"

"Dad, we've been fighting villains all night. We've practically put every bad guy behind bars. Not only that, but my belt is starting to go loco." Manny complained looking at his belt, which had sparks flying out of it. "Can we go home now? I have school tomorrow." Rodolfo sighed.

"You are right, Manny. I guess it is time to get some rest. You look a little tired and unsteady anyway. Let us go home." And with that, they headed back home where they found Jorge Rivera aka Grandpapi, already passed out on the coach.

After taking a long, relaxing shower, Manny headed into his bedroom and put on his orange and black boxers, his belt and his usual yellow and orange striped t-shirt. He wasted no time in hopping right into bed and falling straight to sleep, relaxing his sore and exhausted body. He had been fighting super-villains all day and every one that he and Rodolfo defeated, just lead from one crime to the next. It was such a stressful day that he was practically begging to get some sleep.

A smile rose in his cheeks as he silently snored. Little did he know, his belt had more sparks flying out of it and started glowing a dim, light green.

* * *

_(The Next Morning) _

Manny woke up groggily, his eyes burning red and his body feeling even more sore than ever. He felt a warm and intense feeling all over himself. Those fights couldn't have worn him out that bad. He groaned as he sat up from his bed, wincing in pain While doing so. It was unbearable but he managed to regain a good amount of strength.

He headed into the bathroom and was shocked when he looked in the mirror:

"What the?!" He exclaimed as he stared into a pair of glowing green tiger-like eyes—which were usually seen in his El Tigre attire. He slowly brought his hands to his face and looked down at the belt buckle. It looked completely normal but his body said otherwise. Not to mention the extreme body heat. He tapped the buckle twice, causing a tiny spark to shoot out. He raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"...Maybe I should take a break from being El Tigre for a while." He mumbled. It seemed to be the only solution at this point. After all, he was up all night apprehending criminals. He knew he couldn't let his Papi or Grandpapi see him like this, though. And his mother, most definitely. God knows she would probably have more than an asthma attack. He quickly rushed out of the bathroom and put his clothes on.

He could suddenly smell breakfast as he went downstairs. He concluded that his mother, Maria was already awake. She was still the Head Librarian at his school. Now he _really_ needed to be stealthy at this point. He slowly crept down the stairs and tip-toed through the hallway and successfully making it past the kitchen until:

"Manny?" His mother called, making his eyes grow wide.

"...Yeah, Mom?" Manny replied nervously.

"Is everything all right? Do you need a ride to school?"

"No thanks Mom, I'll walk." He said as he continued his way towards the door.

"Don't you want to eat breakfast first? It's your favorite."

"No thanks, I'm not hungry, I gotta go. See you at school, love you, bye." Manny said, rushing out the door, leaving Maria very confused.

Manny literally dashed his way to school and made it just in the nick of time, despite the soreness in his body. Ever since he and his best friend, Frida Suarez, were put on a curfew, they both have been doing everything they could to get to school on time. That also included waking up early every morning. He went to his locker and leaned against the door panting heavily but quietly. He took a peak to make sure he was in the clear and then opened his locker and looked in the mirror. Unfortunately for him, his eyes were still glowing green. What was going on with him? Was it a developing affect of the El Tigre curse or could it be the start of something else?

Of course Manny knew that there would be certain side-effects to wearing the El Tigre belt but he never knew that one of them would involve his eyes glowing for a long period of time. If this was going to last all day, he probably wouldn't be sure what to do in order to cure it.

"Hey, Manny." A familiar voice greeted him as he felt something poke him on the shoulder. His eyes went wide and he swiftly turned around with a gasp as he was greeted by his blue-haired, tomboy best friend Frida. Her smile then turned into awe when she noticed his green eyes. "Whoa, dude, what's up with your eyes?"

"My eyes? What, nothing, really, why do you ask?" Manny asked hysterically with a grin and a few drops of sweat.

"Uh, because they're glowing? Like literally? I thought they only did that when you're El Tigre?"

"Really? They're glowing? I haven't noticed." His response received a raised eyebrow from her, causing him to sigh. "Look, I don't know. I woke up this morning and I found them this way. Not only that, but my body is sore and I'm hot. I think my belt must be going loco or something. Must be from fighting bad guys with Dad all night."

Frida examined his belt and gave it a poke, causing a few tiny sparks to shoot out.

"Hmm, well have you told anyone yet?" Frida asked.

"No. If I tell Dad, he'll probably think the belt is broken and take the belt away from me. If I tell Grandpapi, he'll probably think I'm becoming evil and give me another long, boring lecture on how this is a good thing and use it to commit a bunch of crimes. And Mom...well you can already guess that one for yourself."

"Riiight...well, have you tried spinning it the other way?"

Manny spun the buckle the other way and unfortunately, he felt completely the same. He looked back up and shrugged his shoulders.

"I think being El Tigre all night is messing with the belt. I should probably give it some rest for a while. Three days at best."

"What?! But dude, you can't go that long without being El Tigre. What if a bad guy breaks out of jail again and your dad isn't around? He's always out on business after all. And what about all that cool, extreme, adrenaline pumping stuff we do all the time? El Tigre is like, the daredevil inside you and we need that daredevil to do that awesome stuff." Frida pleaded.

"Frida, I really don't think any bad guys are gonna be much of an issue for a while. Me and Dad practically rounded up every bad guy in town...well everyone except for Grandpapi, but he really doesn't count at this point." Manny replied. "But I will admit, I do like doing awesome stuff. I guess I could-"

_**"BOOM!"**_

There was a sudden explosion from outside followed by a series of police sirens not too far from the school.

"Aye caramba! Are you kidding me? Who starts a robbery in the morning?!" Manny complained in frustration. "I thought we gathered up all the bad guys last night?"

"It's a spicy cesspool of crime and villainy, dude. Go figure." Frida said.

"Ugh, who is it this time?" Manny said before he, Frida and a couple other students ran outside to see what was going on. There was a large cloud of smoke a few meters ahead as a group of police cars surrounded the bank. Then there was an explosion and a familiar evil laugh could be heard.

Manny's tiger eyes gave him the advantage to see further enough to get a closer look at the flying culprit. The figure was wearing a black sombrero, a giant black robotic suit with long and pointy arms with a skull in the middle and a red mask. Facial features consisted of red eyes, brown hair, and a mustache. He was also carrying two large bags of money.

"Oh, great..._that_ guy." Manny mumbled. "I thought he moved to another city far away from here?"

"Hahaha. It is I, Senor Sinestro. At last, I have returned to Miracle City and there is no possible way you can catch me now." He laughed with a terrible Texan accent. A few months after his last fight with Manny, Sinestro or, Sergio in real life, had moved to another town and nobody had seen or heard from him since then. And in retrospect, no one really cared. Manny just stood there, watching which caught Frida's attention.

"Uh, Manny. Aren't you going to go after him?"

"Let my dad handle it. I've had enough crime fighting for one day." Manny replied, almost walking away until his cell phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and pressed talk. "Hello?"

_"Hola, Mijo."_ Rodolfo said on the other line.

"Dad? What's up?"

_"I just want you to know that I've gone on another business trip so I won't be able to do any crime-fighting 'til I get back. Be a good boy and take care of any criminal activity while I'm gone, okay? And don't go on any heists with your grandfather. Love you, see you when I come home." _

Manny heard the click on the other line and stared blankly at the wall. Then he looked at Frida, who was giving him a cocky grin. He sighed.

"Fine. But this is the last time I'm covering for my dad." Manny twirled the buckle but to his dismay, nothing happened except for a couple more sparks to fly out. "What the?" Manny twirled it again, to now avail. "¿Qué problema hay con este estúpido trozo de-"

Suddenly, Manny's body was engulfed in green flames until he was turned into El Tigre. Confused, Manny glared at the belt until he noticed it was glowing a bright green aura around it.

"Uh, dude, what's up with your belt?" Frida asked, confused as well.

"I told you, something is making it-" Manny was cut off, when his eyes went wide and his body went stiff. His head and right eye started to twitch uncontrollably, which then shifted into a series of hysterical shaking.

"Manny?" Frida called. Instead of an answer, Manny fell onto his hands and his head was face-down. Frida stared at him almost in shock. There was so much going on at this point. First, Manny's eyes are glowing, then his belt, and now he's acting completely crazy. She started to hear him growling...literally, growling like a wild animal.

His head suddenly shot up, revealing an angry pair of green eyes and sharp teeth. From Manny's point of view, all he could see was red and black, as if he really was some sort of wild animal. He brought his attention to Frida and the other students that looked at him.

"Dude, are you feeling okay?" Frida asked before Manny brought his attention to Sinestro, targeting him as if he were his next meal. Manny charged at him on all fours at an unbelievable speed. This shocked almost the entire crowd of students.

Manny ran unbelievably fast and pounced on a wall and climbed his way up to the roof. When he reached the top, he glared at Sinestro and roared a mighty roar. Senor Sinestro heard the roar and looked down and saw his biggest rival, whom he hadn't seen in years.

"El Tigre. Now this just keeps getting better and better." He said with an evil grin. He descended down towards him but stayed mid-flight as the two rivals glared eye-to-eye. "So, we meet again eh, Tigre. How long has it been 2-3 years?"

Manny continued to growl at his 'prey'.

"Not talkin' eh? Fine! I've been thinking a lot about this city since I moved. The heists, the battles, the _failures_. But let's also not forget that you're the one that stole my Frida from me."

"Never was yours and never will be, geek!" Frida yelled, disgusted.

"Anyway, I've waited a long time to get my hands on you and so, I've made a few upgrades over the years. Bandidos, destroy him!"

Four bulky robot bandidos came from out of nowhere and surrounded Manny, but he showed nothing but anger towards them. They were equipped with missile launchers on their shoulders and dual wielded pistols. Manny shot up on both legs and drew his metal claws.

An evil chuckle sounded out from Sinestro as he witnessed his robots make their attack...which only lasted a couple seconds. The sound of roaring and metal being destroyed while Sinestro covered his face to avoid being hit by any flying debris. He uncovered his face and saw his robots were literally massacred into bits and pieces of junk.

"Ya idiots! All the upgrades that I've spent _millions _to get for you, and you still can't even shoot him without getting ripped to shreds?!" Sinestro shouted angrily. "Forget it. I will take care of you myself!"

He landed on the rooftop, while El Tigre glared at him with rage. Manny and Sinestro found each other in a standoff, where Manny drew his claws again and Siniestro drew his fingers. A slot opened on his shoulders, revealing twelve rounds of missiles. An evil grin rose upon Sergio's face, while an angry, ferocious, frown grew on Manny's. Sinestro raised his hands and bullets started unloading towards Manny at the speed of a machine gun. Manny charged at his opponent at top speed while avoiding bullets at the same time.

"Frida?" Maria called. "Are you okay? I heard the explosion. Where's Manny?"

"He's...up there." Frida said, pointing to the building where Manny was. It didn't take long for Maria to enter another series of rapid panting. To this day, it still stresses her out when it comes to Manny getting involved in conflicts such as this. For some reason, it's hard for her to accept the fact that Manny isn't a little boy anymore.

"How can you move that fast?" Sinestro yelled firing another missile. Manny was moving so fast that it was hard for him to get a claer shot. He's already wasted half of his ammunition.

Manny pounced over the incoming missile and tackled Sinestro off the roof.

"Get off o' me ya sass-a-frasin'-AAHH!" Sinestro shouted as Manny furiously clawinged him in every possible way. It wasn't long before Sinestro landed on his back, causing a cloud of dirt to fly up. Manny back flipped off of him and landed in front of him as Sinestro stood back on his feet with four scratches on his face and a part of his mask torn off. He growled and aimed his fingers at him, unloading another wave of ammunition. Manny flipped onto the police car behind him and then onto the wall.

Maria could do nothing but observe her son in action but she couldn't help feel something was off. Manny was moving a lot faster, he was jumping higher and also, he seemed more aggressive than ever. Something about it made him seem unnatural but in a way, it seemed quite familiar. It wasn't until Manny jumped off the wall when she noticed the green aura around his belt buckle. It was then that she knew what seemed to be happening to her son. She dreaded this day would ever come.

Sinestro sweat furiously as he unloaded his bullets but each one collided into the environment until suddenly:

**"CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK!" **Sinestro's robotic suit ran out of ammunition. "Oh dag nabbit." A look of fear arose as he glanced back at Manny, who growled once more and shot his claws open, readying to rip him to shreds.

El Tigre charged at him and made a series of attacks to Sinestro's body armor, completely ignoring the pleas and cries for him to stop.

_**"CLANG, PLOP, PTANG!" **_Sinestro's armor fell apart, piece by piece, revealing a poor, helpless Sergio with a face full of fear.

"Okay, didn't see that a' comin'." Sergio mumbled. Manny tackled him to the ground and raised a claw. Sergio screamed in complete fear but nobody was willing to help him. Manny suddenly stopped as his eyes went wide and his head started shaking again. He suddenly felt his vision and teeth return to normal.

A look of confusion met him as he looked down at the frightened, 13 year old, chubby vigilante, not even noticing that his claw was still in the air.

"I give, I give! Take me to jail! Kick me out of the Miracle City! ANYTHING! Just please don't kill me." Sergio cried.

"Uh...what?" Manny mumbled, a lot more confused.

"Dude." Frida called, which was received with a glance. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Uh...I don't...what's going on now?"

"You don't remember? You were just acting like a wild animal and you practically obliterated Sinestro and his goons. You were growling, your teeth were sharp, and you were fast...like really fast. It was just...so...AWESOME!" Frida explained, stoked about the situation. "I mean, you should've seen yourself. You were like, roar, and shing! Shing! And Sinestro was like, bang, bang, bang! Oh no, please don't cut me! And-"

"Just to be precise, it was pretty impressive." Maria said from out of nowhere. "And pretty...breathtaking."

"Oh, uh, hey, Mom." Manny said, standing up and placing a hand on the back of his head with a nervous grin as the police came and took Sergio into custody.

"Manny, is there something you would like to tell me?" She asked.

"Uh..." Manny muttered, until she raised an eyebrow. "Okay, okay. After me and Papi came home from fighting bad guys, my belt started going loco and then...when I woke up this morning, my eyes were still glowing and...well I guess you saw the rest." Instead of another series of stressful breathing, his mother just sighed.

"I had feared this day would come."

"What? You mean, you knew this would happen?"

"I'm afraid so, Mijo." Maria replied which practically surprised both of them. I guess that explains why she wasn't having another panic attack. "Come, there is something I must show you."

Manny and Frida glanced at each other then followed Maria into the library. She suddenly stopped in the History aisle and pulled out an old, dusty book that looked like it hadn't been read in years. Without a word, she gave the book to Manny.

Manny and Frida examined the book. Manny wiped off the dust, revealing the title embroidered in gold lettering. It read:

'La maldición del Tigre'-The Curse of The Tiger

Manny flipped through the numerous pages, not bothering to read any of the text, until he found a page with pictures on it. In the picture, there was a replica belt, exactly the same as Manny's and wearing the belt was it's host.

The first, is a diagram of the host in human form, and then morphed into El Tigre. Manny turned to the next page, revealing a number of pictures where the host is in the form of El Tigre in a battle pose, but in the picture after that, the belt is glowing green the way Manny's did a few minutes ago. The host is starring at the belt, until he starts experiencing a series of different side effects such as glowing eyes, extreme hunger, supernatural speed, aggression, high temperature body heat, and many others that may seem feral.

Nevertheless, these symptoms seemed to indicate the numerous characteristics of a tiger. The final picture is not only of the host dressed as El Tigre, but also running on all fours, with sharp teeth and attacking a random individual.

"Wait, Mom, are you saying that..." Manny said.

"Yes, Manny. El Espíritu del Tigre ha despertado. (The Spirit of the Tiger has awaken).

"Wait, so...I'm turning into an actual tiger?"

(To be continued)

* * *

_**Please leave a review. Any questions or concerns, PM me or as stated, leave it in a review. Will update as soon as possible. To all a goodnight.**_


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